MDC statement on the current crisis

The current crisis in the MDC
is the culmination of sad events in the partysince the beginning of the
year.

The first incident occurred when a certain section of the party
sponsoredsome unruly youths to engage in violent activities against senior
nationaland provincial executive members of the party. An inquiry was
conducted andit revealed the close involvement of the president’s office
culminating inNational Council taking a resolution to expel these youths
from the party.The National Council also resolved to dismiss Washington Gaga
and NhamoMusekiwa, who were working as bodyguards in the president’s office,
afterthey were found to have been responsible for coordinating the
violentactivities of these youths. In clear violation of the Council’s
resolution,the president went on to reengage these two officers. The Council
had alsoresolved that some of the officers in the president’s office who had
beenimplicated in the violence should be investigated and to date this has
nottaken place and the mastermind of the violence seem to have been
protectedby the president.

Prior to the National Council meeting held
on 12 October 2005 the presidentannounced that the decision on whether the
MDC should participate in theSenate election would be made at the next
National Council meeting. At thismeeting, the Council decided by a majority
of 33 to 31, with two spoiltpapers, to participate in the election but the
president refused to acceptthe outcome of this democratic vote, even though
he, himself had immediatelyprior to the vote being taken, implored all
members of the council to acceptand defend whatever outcome would come out
of the voting process.

After the meeting, the president addressed a press
conference at which hemisrepresented the outcome of the Council meeting by
saying that there hadbeen an equal number of votes on either side and that
there was a deadlock;he had to use his casting vote in favour of a boycott
of the Senateelections. ( It should be noted that even if there had been an
equality ofvotes, the president does not have a casting vote as section
5.4.9 of theconstitution provides: “ All decisions of the National Council
….. shall beby simple majority provided that in the event of an equality of
the motionshall be lost.”)

Subsequently, the president has continued
to take action which is inconflict with the decision taken by the National
Council. This actionincludes the following:¨ Writing to all party
provincial chairpersons instructing them toignore a letter written by the
party’s deputy secretary general instructingprovinces to start selecting
candidates for the upcoming senate election.¨ Writing to the Zimbabwe
Electoral Commission misrepresenting theparty by saying that it had resolved
not to participate in the Senateelections and calling upon the Commission to
register as independents anyonefrom the party purporting to stand in the
name of the party.¨ Addressing meetings around the country to tell
people that the MDCwas not participating in the Senate election.

The
president himself uttered threats and allowed other office bearers toutter
threats against a number of party office bearers who had opposed hisview
that the MDC should not participate in the Senate elections. Thepresident
also issued disparaging statements against members of the NationalCouncil
who had voted in favour of participation.

By his actions, the president
has willfully violated the Constitution of theMDC and breached its
provisions. Although the President of the MDC ismandated by clause 6.1.2 of
the MDC Constitution to act as partyspokesperson on major policy issues, and
participation in Senate election issuch a policy issue, the proviso makes it
crystal clear that, whenexercising this power, he may not do anything
“contrary to the Party’sprinciple of open, transparent and democratic
decision making.”

By acting as above, the president violated the under
listed sections of theconstitution as provided below:

4.4 Every
member shall have the duty:(a) To accept and conform to the
constitution…

6.1.1 It shall be the duty of the president(a) To
uphold and defend the Party Constitution;…(d) To promote the principles
of democratic discourse and participation andequality of all members within
the party;…6.1.2 The president;shall in general act as a
spokesperson on major policy issues and shall bethe principal public
representative of the party, provided that nothing inthis section shall be
construed as empowering the president to act or doanything contrary to the
party’s principle of open, transparent anddemocratic decision
making.

Codes of Conduct

9.1 All office bearers shall comply with
the Code of Conduct for all OfficeBearers of the party.

Code of
Conduct for all Office Bearers of the Party

2. Such members shall conduct
themselves with the highest standards ofpersonal integrity and honour and
shall not involve themselves indishonorable conduct.

The MDC was
founded on principles which include democracy, freedom,transparency and
justice. The party is determined to uphold these principlesand values and
will not allow one person or a group of persons to
destroythem.

Many still homeless in Zimbabwe

Many thousands of Zimbabweans whose houses were destroyed
earlier this year remain in rural areas without proper homes, say a group of
church leaders.

Speaking in Johannesburg about Zimbabwe's Operation
Murambatsvina, priests from various churches said evictions were still
continuing.

The government crackdown targets informal traders and
buildings the authorities deem illegal.

The Archbishop of Bulawayo warned that some
200,000 were threatened by hunger.

A United Nations envoy said 700,000 people were
affected by Operation Murambatsvina.

Archbishop Pius Ncube said that according to his
estimate, about 200,000 people would die by early next year because they no
longer had money to buy food, and because the population was affected by
HIV-Aids.

"Hunger is due to the Zimbabwe government refusing
food aid," Archbishop Ncube added.

"Even if there are good rains this year, the
government is so bankrupt that it has very little to spend on seed, and there is
no fertiliser."

"Eighty percent of those displaced people who were
sent to rural areas have not yet acquired any permanent settlement," said Pastor
Albert Chatido, the logistical co-ordinator of church aid efforts in Bulawayo.

"They are dwelling with relatives or in the headman's
homestead. NGOs are only allowed to supply food to a certain area."

Dispersed

Pastor Ray Motsi, chairman of the Combined Churches
of Bulawayo, said that "out of the 700,000 the UN was talking about, between
300,000 and 400,000 have been displaced to rural areas".

Hunger is due to the Zimbabwe government refusing food aid

Archbishop Pius
Ncube

"The tragedy is that many had no rural background and
made their way back."

However, Shari Eppel, human rights advisor to
Archbishop Ncube said that while the UN figures on displacement were credible,
there were no reliable figures on how many had ended up in the rural areas.

"Where people are now we just don't know," she told
the BBC News website.

Church leaders say it is not possible to get an
accurate number of the number of people forcibly displaced to the rural areas,
since they are widely dispersed.

A survey published in a report by the Solidarity
Peace Trust - a South African-based group working in Zimbabwe - suggests that of
the people whose homes were destroyed in Bulawayo's Killarney squatter camp, 70%
said they had nowhere else to go.

Pastor Chatido said between 500 and 1,000 people were
still living in the open in various parts of Bulawayo.

He said that a group of people of Malawian descent,
interviewed by the BBC News website in August, were still living in the bush in
the Bulawayo suburb of Cowdray Park.

"One of them died recently," Pastor Chatido said.

More demolitions

He added that demolitions were continuing in
Killarney, after people rebuilt the shelters that had earlier been demolished.

People have become dependent on aid from
churches

"Killarney Village 2 was recently squashed for the
third time," he said.

In Killarney Village 3, Pastor Chatido said informal
settlement dwellers had come up with a novel way of beating the demolitions:
"They take down their corrugated sheets in the morning, and then reconstruct
their shelters in the evening."

In Victoria Falls, Pastor Chatido said people were
living 15 in a small house, after the destruction of outbuildings forced people
to share the available accommodation.

Archbishop Predicts Zimbabwe Catastrophe

The Guardian

Wednesday
October 19, 2005 7:16 PM

AP Photo JOH101

By TERRY
LEONARD

Associated Press Writer

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP) -
A Zimbabwean archbishop said Wednesday he feared 200,000 of his countrymen
could die by early next year because of food shortages he blamed on his
government, and called for President Robert Mugabe's ouster.

Roman
Catholic Archbishop Pius Ncube, a frequent critic of Mugabe, spoke at a news
conference called to show a new film on ``Operation Murambatsvina,'' a
widely condemned government campaign that critics charge has left tens of
thousands of Zimbabweans trapped in a spiral of poverty, hunger and
displacement.

``I think Mugabe should just be banished, like what
happened to Charles Taylor. He should just be banished from Zimbabwe,'' said
Ncube, referring to the former Liberian president forced into exile in
Nigeria.

``Let the man get banished if you don't want Zimbabweans to
die,'' said Ncube, responding to questions about what the international
community could do to help Zimbabwe.

The archbishop said food
security in Zimbabwe was so precarious that unless there is a dramatic
change, malnutrition could contribute to the premature deaths of 200,000
people by February.

Ncube said it was a personal estimate and based on
his belief of the effect of severe food shortages on a population ravaged by
HIV/AIDS and extreme poverty at a time of hyperinflation and near 80 percent
unemployment. He said 700 people a day already were dying of AIDS in
Zimbabwe and the death rate would increase with malnutrition.

Bishop
Rubin Phillip, the Anglican bishop of KwaZulu Natal Province in South Africa
and the co-chairman of the Solidarity Peace Trust, a group of church leaders
committed to human rights and democracy, said Zimbabweans ``were living
lives of desperation with no glimmer of hope.''

He said the Solidarity
Peace Trust has documented that hundreds of thousands of people have been
``cruelly and deliberately deprived of houses and livelihood by the
government of Zimbabwe.''

In May, the government without warning began
burning or destroying informal settlements and the kiosks of vendors. The
United Nations said at least 700,000 people lost their homes or livelihoods
in the campaign it called a violation of international law. The clerics say
dozens of people, including newborn babies, died as a result of
exposure.

``You can see what kind of people we are dealing with here,
murderers. I will not mince my words,'' said Ncube.

The new film,
titled ``Hide and Seek,'' shows Mugabe saying the operation was a cleanup
campaign that would move people out of unpleasant informal settlements into
new and better homes built by the government.

It then interviews
Zimbabweans who lost their homes in the campaign and four months later are
still living in the open or in makeshift shacks of sticks and plastic
sheeting and cooking over open fires. The clerics estimate tens of thousands
of people have simply been dumped in rural areas where they are unknown and
unwanted. Nearly all have no jobs, no money.

``The amount of suffering is
beyond imagination,'' said Ncube.

The Rev. Ray Motsi, the president of
the National Pastors Conference in Zimbabwe, said people who initially found
refuge in churches were dislodged by armed police in the middle of the night
and forced on trucks that took them to rural areas.

``They had done
nothing but commit the crime of poverty,'' said Motsi.

Ncube said the
government of Zimbabwe was only interested in cover up, lies and in making
promises it has no intention of delivering.

``Mugabe is the kind of
character that even if 50 percent of Zimbabweans died he would not care,''
he said.

The clerics said the government has refused food aid and
restricted the work of international organizations and churches that seek to
distribute food, meaning that international relief was limited and
spotty.

Silent Spring

This is a harsh time of the year in southern Africa.
We have had 7 months ofdry weather and the hot season is upon us with
temperatures in the 30's andsometimes low 40's. It is also absolutely dry -
rivers have stopped flowingand pools are drying out, the grazing is almost
exhausted and the colors ofthe open veld are stark and vivid. The
yellow/white of the remaining grass,the early green flush of the figs and
the pod mahogany, the startling pastelcolors of the mountain acacia and
Msasa.

But it is always a time of great expectation. All of creation
knows thatsoon the storm clouds will arrive and with them the first rains
and thatunmistakable scent of the wet African earth. The birds know it and
arenesting, the migrants have arrived from their European and Central
Africanwinter sojourns and the swallows are back.

Normally the
countryside is alive with activity - tractors crawling acrossthe dry lands
with clouds of red and gray dust billowing up behind, oxenstraining their
harness in front of steel ploughs and harrows. In manyparts, man is speeding
up the whole process with his usual impatience andthe irrigation lines are
out and the sprays fly into the wind and bringfourth the first early
seedlings. The flowering shrubs throw off the burdenof winter and burst out
in their new costumes of purple and red, white andyellow, defying the
realities of the winter world they have just beenthrough.

In the days
of the civil war in Zimbabwe, I always took comfort in thesubtle shift in
human activity that took place in the spring. Somehow if wewent out and
ploughed our lands and brought in all that we would need forthe summer
rains, seed, fertilizer, herbicides, insect sprays, fuel and oil,we knew
that we had committed ourselves to another season, another year.This year it
is quite different, this year the spring is silent, almosteerily
so.

The farms are abandoned, homesteads which once rang with the games
ofchildren home from school at the weekend, are derelict and occupied in
manycases by miserable squatters. Some are occupied by families whose real
livesare in the cities nearby and they come out at the weekend to uneasily
sitwhere they do not belong and enjoy the use of things that are actually
theproperty of others. They ride guiltily through the weed-encrusted fields
andpast the broken down sheds and cattle kraals. The spirits of those who
areburied there and whose lives are bound up in the springs of the past
makefor uneasy companions.

But it is not only on the farms that this
spring has died before it began -in the peasant farming districts, the
specter of another hungry season isupon the communities that live there. The
majority of the young people -especially the men folk, have left for Egoli
or Gaborone, London and NewYork. Those that are left have nothing to live on
except from what comes infrom the outside. Perhaps strutting, threatening
Party men in trucks andMercedes cars. Perhaps World Vision or Save the
Children. Perhaps the WorldFood programme or the USAID. Sometimes help comes
in the form of a letterwith some greasy pounds inside or a mysterious
deposit in a Post Officeaccount of which they were alerted by a phone call
or a message from thelocal store.

But they are exhausted before they
even begin. Their cattle are thin, thegrazing and water sparse. Seed and
other essential inputs are either notavailable or are too expensive and
there are now so many demands on theirlimited resources that they have to
spend their money wisely, dollar bydollar. The other problem is that each
family has new burdens - the childrenof other families left behind when both
parents died or left the country.Sick relatives from the urban areas told by
the last hospital or doctor theysaw to "go home " - better to die there
where your relatives do not have torent a truck to carry your body home.
Many of the actual breadwinners are infact sick with many ailments -
tuberculosis, pneumonia, malaria and variousforms of carcinoma. All made
more deadly by HIV and Aids.

We know what this failure to prepare for the
summer means - it means thereis no commitment to this season, to next year.
Our streets are unusuallyquiet, people do not have the fuel to use their
cars and transport is justprohibitively expensive. Factories are closing
their doors and sending theirstaff home without pay, customers walk through
the stores looking at theprices and wondering just what they can afford to
buy. The sight of peopleleaving empty handed or with tiny parcels of
essential foods isheartbreaking - you want to step in and take over and
allow them to use yourdebit card to fill their baskets.

This is a
nation that is dying on its feet, exhausted after a long trekthrough a
winter of hardship and struggle. A nation that cannot smell thescent of
early rains and now thinks that even if it does rain, it is simplytoo late.
The Bible says that a nation without vision dies. We have novision of the
future, just of survival like shipwrecked passengers hangingonto flotsam in
the open sea.

Watching Mugabe rant and rave at the FAO Conference in Rome
brought into mymind an image of the passengers in the sea watching as the
Captain of thisship, who was criminally responsible for its capsize, sails
past in a lifeboat. The image extends to Mugabe making a speech to the
sailors in the boatwith him. While this is going on a pleasure cruiser sails
past us both - thepassengers in the water and Mugabe in his lifeboat and
this cruiser calledthe UN Fair and Ample Oligarchy is jammed with overweight
slugs that clapand cheer the silly old man in his Captains
uniform.

As this circus of clown and congregation sails out of sight, we
the poorpassengers are left with nothing but the sea and endless waves and
thesharks. Our only hope is to either drift ashore or be rescued by
anothervessel. This is our silent spring, but tonight there is a beautiful
fullmoon and one of my succulents has given birth to a spectacular single
flowerthat will bloom overnight and be dead in the morning.

The one
thing we cannot afford at this time is a fight for a better place inthe
water. Rather we should be caring for each other and helping each otherto
believe that there is a future and that when we finally get back tosanity,
we will be able to live again. I am reminded of a shepherd whowrote, "even
though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I willfear no evil,
His rod and His staff will guide". Perhaps next spring will
bebetter.

ICTU-AFRO condemns harassment of Zim workers

Nairobi - The African branch of a leading world
trade union group on Wednesday condemned Zimbabwe's alleged use of
"government terror and repression" against its members in the crisis-wracked
nation.

The Nairobi-based International Confederation of Free Trade
Unions-African Regional Organisation (ICTU-AFRO) demanded an end to what it
said were arrests and harassment of Zimbabwean workers and union leaders by
authorities.

"We are concerned that the trade union leaders and
activists are hit by the full power of government terror and repression," it
said in a statement, referring to arrests of members of the Zimbabwe
Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) in Harare.

"Trade union leaders
of our affiliate in Zimbabwe, the ZCTU, have been victims of constant terror
and aggression," it said.

"The government must
cease using highhanded tactics against workers and trade union leaders," it
said. "It is despicable that in Zimbabwe trade unions trying to do their job
to represent the interests of workers are being persecuted."

ICTU-AFRO referred to arrests of union leaders at a peaceful demonstration
in Harare called to protest high fuel and food shortages, high prices and
taxation and the detention of a high school teacher who it said had been
accused of teaching "opposition politics."

Zimbabwe is currently in
the grips of economic and social crisis blamed by many on the policies of
President Robert Mugabe's government.

Food and fuel are scarce
commodities and earlier Wednesday an outspoken Zimbabwean cleric warned that
some 200 000 of his countrymen could starve to death in the coming months
due to rampant inflation, drought and bad policies.

Arrested labour leader handcuffed and moved to Harare on public
bus

By Violet Gonda 19 October 2005

The
General Secretary of the Commercial Workers Union and leader of the MDC
Women's Assembly Lucia Matibenga was arrested Wednesday on unknown grounds
by police in Gweru. Matibenga had been ordered to report to the police
station there in the morning, but was later handcuffed and put on a Harare
bound public bus with 2 police escorts.

Matibenga said she had been
told that there was an outstanding warrant of arrest but Gweru police
refused to show it to her. They then took her in handcuffs and put her on a
public bus. Te police told her they did not have fuel or a vehicle to
transport her to Harare Central Police Station.

Speaking to us on
the bus, the labour leader who holds a lot of influence in the Zimbabwe
Congress of Trade Unions and the MDC said this is part of the harassment of
ZCTU officials by agents planted by the government.

She
believes her arrest is connected to the ongoing problems with the Commercial
Workers' Union of Zimbabwe. The General Secretary said: "In May, state
sponsored people invaded our union offices trying to remove, to oust myself
and my executive which runs the union. And we challenged that in court, and
we successfully did so, and now we are back at the union working. But they
continue to use their friends and relatives in the police force to harass us
so that we don't concentrate on our work."

State agents have in the
past seized equipment from the ZCTU offices claiming that officials had
externalised foreign currency. They have also disrupted Union meetings by
physically attacking top officials including Matibenga herself. Some
officials and workers in the Transport Union, Leather Union and the Zimbabwe
Union of Journalists have been at the forefront of these attacks. These
unions were voted out of the ZCTU in a vote of no confidence as the
government campaign to disrupt the union intensified.

The ZCTU
president Lovemore Matombo and secretary general Wellington Chibhebhe have
also been under attack during a government campaign to replace them with a
pair more sympathetic to the government.

Zesa Earns Us$8,5m From Tobacco

ZESA Holdings, one of the country's largest tobacco
contractors in the past season, has earned itself US$8,5 million from the
golden leaf.

The power utility diversified into tobacco contract farming
with the aim of boosting its foreign currency coffers to meet its ballooning
electricity import bill.

Zesa Holdings has the distinction of being
the only contractor active in tobacco whose core business is not farming
oriented. Other contractors have an established track record as buyers,
processors or sellers of the golden leaf.

The power utility sold a
total of 4,548 million kilogrammes valued at US$8,504 million, which
translates to an average price of US$1,86 per kg.

This is significantly
higher than the average US$1,60 per kg obtained at the auction
floors.

A total of 28,3 million kg of tobacco went under the hammer at
the three auction floors, equating to about a third of the 74 million kg
sold during the 2005 selling season.

At 4,5 million kg, Zesa Holdings
accounted for more than a sixth of the total tobacco sold on the auction
floors and under the contract system.

As a contractor, the power utility
assumes the dual role of auction floor and merchant, buying the crop and
then exporting it.

Now in its second season, the contract growing system
is a concept borrowed from Brazil to boost production, which has taken a
slump in recent years.

Bulawayo: Zanu PF hydro-politics at work

New Zimbabwe

By Oscar
NkalaLast updated: 10/19/2005 13:55:33IT WAS good to hear President
Robert Mugabe promising Zanu PF supporters in Bulawayo that his bankrupt and
embittered government was doing everything to help the city through its
water crisis.

That Zanu PF supporters and aspiring senators clapped and
ululated was most expected of the blind followers of a long lost and
probably senile ex-revolutionary. I will not dwell on the merits of the
water for Bulawayo promise, but rather on its nonsensical value.

It
is nonsensical that a man who has been president of Zimbabwe for the last
twenty five years needs a drought in 2005 to remind him that drought in
Matabeleland is not a calamity but a perpetual condition. It is equally
nauseating of the supposed veteran president to say his government, bloated
to the seams with proven incompetents and 97% disability cases, is doing
something about the situation in Bulawayo when all it has is a long list of
things it should have done but chose not to.

It is sad to note that
the issue of Bulawayo's water security has become one of hydro-politics in
Zanu PF. Each time the country approaches a crucial election, the people of
the city are asked to vote for the promise of a pipeline that will never
come. A good look at the government and Zanu PF's track record in addressing
the issue of water security in the arid south-western provinces reveals
loads of empty promises and outright lies.

The Matabeleland Zambezi Water
Project, long envisaged as the final solution to the western region's water
crisis, has simply fizzled into the air. Zanu PF leaders like taking
Mugabe's cue of talking like the legendary water magician of an era gone by.
Like the old magician, Mugabe wants Bulawayans to believe that his
pre-election tours in the city can end its water woes.

What he is unaware
of is that Bulawayans are now wise enough to know that any Zanu PF-led
mention of water security plans for Bulawayo ends up with the introduction
of party candidates for this or that election. In simple terms, the
residents now know that the water crisis is now a campaign issue. The reason
why it cannot be done once and for all is that Zanu PF might lose a crucial
campaign issue. Apart from the political benefits of perpetuating the
crisis, government officials like Bulawayo governor and resident minister,
Cain Mathema, have lied through their teeth in a bid to blame the crisis on
the MDC-led council and not the government's lack of a sustainable water
security plan for the arid region where Bulawayo lies.

Mathema seems to
be the only stranger in the city for he does not know that the city has
never been out of the water crisis. Together with other small-minded Zanu PF
officials in the city, Mathema made wild claims that the MDC run city
council had failed to give government adequate notice of the impending water
crisis. Mathema knew he was lying. The same minister, who is believed to
have been a key player in a failed attempt to coax the government to
dissolve the Bulawayo City Council and install a Zanu PF commission like
they did for Harare, also has problems with non-governmental organizations
drilling boreholes for the city's desperate residents. Why should this
irresponsible governor speak out against aid given to a people government
cannot care for?

Mathema and the president of his party must learn that
government does not need reminding or notification about the Bulawayo water
crisis. Such behaviour serves to confirm a theory that Zanu PF is
suffocating Matabeleland just because it voted for the opposition MDC.
Because of the deliberate neglect of development across Matabeleland, many
people would also take Zanu PF jingle-master, Tafataona Mahoso's statements
on secessionist fears as a revelation and foundation of the party's
retrogressive policy towards Matabeleland.

Denying a licence to The
Weekly Times, a newspaper that was supposed to be based in Bulawayo, Mahoso
is alleged to have cited fears it would fuel secessionist thinking in the
region. I am convinced that Mahoso's thoughts form the basis of Zanu PF's
common policy towards a region that has never voted voluntarily for it since
1980. Denying people water or newspapers cannot stop or fuel secession if
the political causes are there.

Which brings me to Dumiso
Dabengwa!

At this critical time in the Bulawayo water situation, DD is
the man we all expected to hear from more often since the last time we heard
he was chairman of the Matabeleland Zambezi Water Trust (MZWT). From his
appointment as 'life' chairman of the public trust, DD has, like Joshua
Nkomo in his last days, evolved from a public figure into a purveyor and
beneficiary of Zanu PF hegemonic interests in the region. I make no
apologies for this observation. The problem with DD is that like all failed
Zanu PF politicians, he lacks honesty. Between 1998 and 2001, we read so
many statements attributed to DD and promising a very speedy implementation
of the MZWP. DD was even joined Vice-President Joyce Mujuru, then minister
of Water Resources, in announcing the allocation of millions of dollars
worth of sponsorship for one phase or the other of the project.

In a
naked bid to help Zanu PF garner votes, the cash-strapped Reserve Bank of
Zimbabwe (RBZ) joined the sinister charade, claiming it had the necessary
funds ready to start the project. No matter how misleading the official
statements can be, the truth is that there is no work on the pipeline. The
'something' that government or rather Zanu PF claims to be doing is to try
and get Dumiso Dabengwa elected as one of the Bulawayo senators "so that the
MZWP can be speeded up," (I can see it on the apologist The
Chronicle!!).

Whether he becomes one of the country's geriatric senators
or not, DD should be made to account for the collapse of the MZWT.
Allegations of dictatorship and corruption against DD are not unusual for a
Zanu PF officer given the chronic nature of both pandemics in the party. But
it is the alleged use of public trust funds to entertain a
secretary-cum-mistress on long foreign trips (Canada and Germany) which
don't make him a good senatorial candidate.

The closure of the MZWT
offices in August 2003 followed the exposure of financial impropriety and
general abuse of power. DD responded by sacking the entire staff and leaving
the questionable secretary who continued earning one of the most "out-of
this-world" salaries in Bulawayo at the time. The scandalous nature of
senator Dabengwa's tenure at MZWT was confirmed by his failure to submit to
an audit of the MZWT accounts even as Arnold Payne, an illustrious water
rights campaigner took him to court and won a judgment compelling DD to
avail the MZWT statement of accounts.

That remains undone and those who
noticed the anomaly should have missed a heartbeat when DD announced again
last month that the MZWT would not be releasing any public statements
relating to how it conducts its business. The absurdity of such an
announcement was as clear as the muddy water MZWT was set up bring to
Bulawayo. If the MZWT was a public trust and DD was its chairman, and not
the chairman and the members as he seems to be thinking, why would the real
public let him get away with a blanket ban on statements, the principal
method of communication for any trust that works normally? So many residents
of the city are shareholders of MZWT and they have a right to know what
happened to their monies especially now as it becomes clear that it was not
used to bring any water from the Zambezi. As a senior member of Zanu PF,
DD's business at MZWT was to make sure that the overall dream of water
security failed as it runs counter to Zanu PF thinking. It could also have
been designed to make sure that all the donations end up in Zanu PF campaign
coffers.

By continually refusing to publicise the MZWT statement of
accounts, DD confirms suspicions that the coffers are empty and the project
is dead. In simple terms, the city of Bulawayo is suffering because Zanu PF
fears self-sufficiency would encourage secessionist thinking in
Matabeleland. Yes, that may happen since the people were never happy with
Zanu PF rule at any time in history and probably will never be. Gukurahundi
did not help matters either.

But keeping people thirsty is one way of
encouraging an even more radical solution than such small talk as mere
secession. Until government abandons hydro-politics to take up the real
development challenges as opposed to the short-term politics of survival,
the thirsty and underdeveloped southwest will continue to suffer. Even as
politicians re-read 2001 speeches identifying America and Britain as
Zimbabwe's enemies, the hungry and thirsty certainly know that their real
enemies are those that won't give them water sufficiency. Like all hungry
and subdued souls, they are very angry!Oscar Nkala is a Zimbabwean
journalist and can be e-mailed at: osmoroka1@hotmail.com

Catholic archbishop wants Mugabe banished from Zimbabwe

Zim Online

Wed
19 October 2005

JOHANNESBURG - Zimbabwean Catholic Archbishop Pius
Ncube has called for President Robert Mugabe to be banished from the country
the same way Charles Taylor was banned from Liberia to pave way for a
resolution of the southern African country's crisis.

Ncube was
speaking at the launch today in Johannesburg of a film produced by
Solidarity Peace Trust detailing the plight of tens of thousands of
Zimbabweans whose shantytown homes and informal businesses were destroyed by
the government in a controversial campaign four months ago to clean up urban
areas.

Solidarity, co-chaired by Ncube and South African bishop
Rubin Philip, is a grouping of pro-human rights and democracy church leaders
from Zimbabwe and South Africa. Ncube, a radical critic of Mugabe who at one
time said he was praying to God to take away the Zimbabwean leader, said
more than 200 000 people could starve to death unless Mugabe was removed to
pave way for food aid into the country.

Ncube, who said the
figure of 200 000 people facing starvation was his own estimation, said:
"Unless and until Mugabe is banished in Zimbabwe like Charles Taylor of
Liberia, more than 200 000 people are going to die of
starvation.

"There is no way you can talk sense
to Mugabe because he is a professional liar. He is only interested in
insulting (Tony) Blair and (George W.) Bush instead of realising his failure
to manage the country.

"The government has not done anything to
follow up on the uprooted people. Moreover Mugabe, seeing how bad the
situation is, he is refusing food aid from non-governmental organisations to
the people."

According to the United Nations, at least 700 000
people were cast onto the streets without food or water when the government
without prior warning destroyed city backyard cottages, shantytown homes and
informal businesses in or near urban areas.

Another 2.4 million
people were also affected in the demolition campaign that the UN says may
have violated international law but which Mugabe says was necessary to smash
crime and restore the beauty of Zimbabwe's cities.

The
Zimbabwean leader also insists the campaign was meant to replace slum
accommodation with proper housing under a new house building campaign
codenamed Operation Garikai/Hlalani Kuhle.

But Harare Reverend
Nicholas Mukaronda told the audience at the film launch that the cash
strapped government was failing to build the houses for the thousands of
displaced people.

He said: "People are living in holes, Operation
Garikai/Hlalani Kuhle is nothing but a mere cover up. Of the three hundred
thousand houses the government has promised, only 700 have been built and
only 200 of these houses are inhabitable."

In the new film
titled "Hide and Seek," Mugabe is shown saying the home demolition campaign
was meant to move people out of unpleasant informal settlements into new and
better homes built by the government.

It then shows ordinary people
whose homes were destroyed but who are still living in the open or in
makeshift shacks of sticks and plastic sheeting and cooking over open fires
four months after the government promised to build them better
homes.

According to Philip, Solidarity was calling on the
international community to do more to take care of the people of Zimbabwe
and force Mugabe's government to take care of its people. -
ZimOnline